Tag: white wine

When we were invited to do a tasting of New Zealand wines and interview with winemaker Peter Jackson, we were expecting to be part of a much larger group. Instead, it was just the two of us, Jackson and his publicist at a bar in Downtown Los Angeles.

By the way, this Peter Jackson is not the film director. He’s pretty good-natured about sharing his name.

“I grew up in Australia,” where, he added, there was a menswear company known as Peter Jackson. “I’ve just been cursed my whole life.”

When it comes to New Zealand wines, most people immediately think of sauvignon blanc, and there’s a good reason for that. The variety accounts for around 80 percent of all grapes grown in New Zealand, although Jackson added that there is a growing demand for pinot gris and pinot noir, as well as chardonnay. Almost all of the grape growing is done in the state of Marlborough, which is at the southern tip of the island country.

Jackson, himself, grew up in Queensland, Australia, went to school in France, then ended up working for Crowded House and Catalina Sounds, which are two labels produced by the company.

What makes New Zealand wines distinctive

What makes a New Zealand sauv blanc so distinctive, according to Jackson, in the bright acidity and citrus.

“There’s nothing better than fresh mussels,” he said. “It will hold up well with delicate white meat.”

We tasted the 2016 Crowded House sauvignon blanc, and Michael noted cut grass and some gooseberry on the nose. It had a dry finish and citrus flavors, minerals and acids. The 2017 Catalina Sounds sauv blanc had a more delicate nose and a quieter profile. There was, of course, citrus and some gooseberry, too.

Jackson said that pinot noir is getting to be an up and coming grape in New Zealand. It hadn’t done well until recently.

“They were planting the wrong clones,” Jackson said.

But nowadays, growers seem to have found the right clones, and are planting it more on the hillsides. Jackson makes his with native ferments.

“I can’t remember the last time I used yeast on a red,” he said.

We tried two Catalina Sounds pinot noirs. Michael noted that the 2015 was a slightly savory wine, with dry red and black fruit. The 2016 was very similar, but with a hint of spice.

Jackson said that he’s become very fond of his adopted country, where the people are quite humble and friendly.

“It’s absolutely one thing I love about New Zealand,” he said. “We realize that we’re all in it together. What’s good for you is going to be good for me.”

So, if you can’t find Crowded House or Catalina Sounds at your local wine store, try looking for a New Zealand wine, in general. They’re pretty tasty.

It was a simple question. Anne’s daughter saw a recipe that called out dry white wine and wondered what makes a dry cooking wine? Or dry wine for cooking?

And as with most simple questions, the answer is… Well, not so simple. We could post a list of types of white wines, but then, with our luck, you’ll stumble into the rare one that’s made in a sweet style.

So let’s start with the basics. Fermentation in wine is what happens when yeast consumes sugar in a juice and spits out alcohol. In most cases, we’re talking about grape juice, but wine can be made from any number of juices, including some stuff you don’t even want to think about as juice, such as parsnip and bell pepper (trust us, don’t go there). In dry wine, the yeast consumes all of the sugar in the wine before dying of alcohol poisoning. In sweet wines, either the fermentation is stopped or the alcohol is so high it kills off the remaining yeasts before it can consume all the sugar.

As Anne wrote in her mini-blog, From the Dark Side of the Fridge, earlier this week, dry wine has more acid in it, so it brightens flavors up. Which is why you generally use dry wine in cooking, as opposed to sweet wine. Sometimes, it will be a dry red wine, which usually goes with stronger flavored foods, such as beef. Often it will be a dry white wine, which is not only more acidic, it’s going to have a lighter flavor that won’t overwhelm other flavors in the dish.

So Which Dry Cooking Wine do I Buy?

All of the above is interesting, but admittedly not a lot of help when you’re at the grocery store staring at row upon row of wines, mostly grouped by grape variety or country of origin, and there’s no friendly shopkeeper within miles to help.

Wine snobs will tell you that you don’t want to buy any wine for cooking that you wouldn’t drink. But while the vast majority of what a wine snob will tell you is, indeed, a veritable load of horse manure, they’re sort of right on this one. Only sort of right.

You don’t want really, really horrible wine. Most jug wines fall into this category (though not all). That makes sense – anything that tends to be overly fruity or oxidized is not going to add the best flavor to your meal.

That being said, you don’t want really good wine, either. All the things that make really good wines good – the subtle layers of flavor, the interplay between tannins, acid and fruit – that’s all lost when you’ve added the meat and/or veggies, the herbs and other flavors and cooked it all together. So there’s no point in spending $30 for a bottle, then cooking out all of the reasons the bottle is worth $30 (assuming, of course, that you got one that really is worth $30, which is another post all together).

What you want is a basic bottle in the $5 to $7 range. The infamous Charles Shaw label from Trader Joe’s is perfectly acceptable for cooking and won’t set you back much more than $3.50 in most parts of the country ($2.50 in California). Red wines cabernet sauvignon and merlot are generally fermented dry. On the white side, you can generally count on chardonnay and sauvignon blanc to be dry. In fact, these are so commonly fermented dry that if they do happen to be made as sweet wines, it will say so on the label. Or should. Alas, nothing is absolute in the wine world. But it’s a pretty safe bet that something labeled cabernet sauvignon, merlot, chardonnay or sauvignon blanc will be a dry wine.

Beware of anything that says “late harvest” on the label. That means the grapes were harvested well after most of their pals that became dry wine, which in turn means that there was more sugar in the grapes and it’s probably a sweet wine. The other thing to be aware of (although it’s an older thing that you see don’t too often in grocery stores anymore) is anything actually labeled “cooking wine.” It usually has salt added and is pretty nasty.

There are lots of other wines, both red and white, that are dry, and if you have a particular fave that’s generally on the wine rack or in the fridge, then there is absolutely no reason not to use it when the recipe or whatever you’re making calls for a dry red or white. As long as it tastes dry to you.

When we talk about actors, we generally think of whichever project they were last seen in. However, David Hornsby is not seen in his current project because he’s not only the producer, but voicing the character of Joel on FX’s new animated comedy Unsupervised, airing at 10:30 p.m. on Thursdays.

We caught up with Hornsby last July, where he confessed that he’s not a big wine drinker.

“I’m a beer man,” he said. “I like a cold beer at the end of the day.”

But while he has nothing against wine, per se, he does have difficulty drinking red wine.

“Why does red wine give me heartburn?” he asked for his wine FAQ. ” The second it goes down my pipe, oh man!”

Well, we did some checking with WebMD, and that site said that if wine gives you heartburn, it could be an indication of GERD, which can be a serious problem. Or it could just be a personal sensitivity. These things happen.

Hornsby did ask a second question: “Why are there so many blogs about wine? Aren’t they just fermented grapes? Am I crazy?”

No, Mr. Hornsby, you are not crazy. Wine is simply fermented grapes and sometimes other fruits. But something that tastes this good and that can be this complex can be a lot of fun to talk about. And people who love wine often love talking about it, and writing about it, in the case of we bloggers.

Admittedly here at OddBallGrape.com, we’re on a mission. We want to make wine more fun for everyone, not just the swirl, sip and snark crowd. So hopefully, your tummy issues will clear up. Or maybe you’ll find a nice white wine that you can enjoy. You might even try a bubbly, if you can drink beer okay.